


Unwished for Wishes

by KaytheJay



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Armageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27894334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytheJay/pseuds/KaytheJay
Summary: He woke up on the cold floors of Hell. A headache unlike any he’d ever experienced before throbbed. He groaned as he sat up. Waking up today felt like so much effort. It really didn’t seem worth it. He opened his eyes and looked around the room.It was a stony room, almost reminded him of a prison cell. He was definitely in Hell, though he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was wishing that he had never met Aziraphale.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Unwished for Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to day 5 of my Countdown to Christmas! 
> 
> The idea from this fic comes from my incredible girlfriend (as most of my best fics come from). She said that she got the inspiration for this one from the movie 13 going on 30, so there’s that if you’re familiar with that movie. If you’re not it doesn’t matter, this isn’t a crossover. The idea just stems from that. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

“Maybe my life wouldn’t be so fucking complicated if I hadn’t fucking met you. I wish I’d never met you,” Crowley said. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them, but he wasn’t about to back down now. He watched as the angel’s face fell. It broke his heart into pieces. He’d sworn to never hurt the angel. And here he was, hurting the angel. 

“Get out,” Aziraphale said. He turned his back to the demon. “Get out.” 

“Angel I-”

“ _ Get out. _ Haven’t you done enough?” Crowley nodded. He headed to the door to the bookshop. He needed space. The angel needed space. It had been a rough day for both of them. It was time for them to just . . . stop for the day. They would try again tomorrow. He knew they would. They would work everything out. They always did. This would be no different. 

Crowley had no idea where the words had come from. He loved the angel, he really did. He could not imagine life without him, nor did he want to. Nothing about a life without Aziraphale seemed like a life he would want to live. The angel was the light at the end of the tunnel and the solution to everything that was wrong with the world. 

“Yes, tomorrow,” Crowley murmured. “We will fix everything tomorrow. It will be ok again. Just give him space to breathe.” He headed back to his apartment and straight to bed. The quicker  _ tomorrow  _ came, the better it would be, for the both of them. 

***

He woke up on the cold floors of Hell. A headache unlike any he’d ever experienced before throbbed. He groaned as he sat up. Waking up today felt like so much  _ effort. _ It really didn’t seem worth it. He opened his eyes and looked around the room. 

It was a stony room, almost reminded him of a prison cell. He was definitely in Hell, though he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was wishing that he had never met Aziraphale.  _ Aziraphale _ . 

He stood up quickly enough that he became dizzy, but he didn’t care. He needed to reach the angel. He needed to apologize and fix everything. Whatever had happened was all his fault. He knew that. The angel knew that. All that there was left was to go fix it. He headed to the door and tried to open it, only to find that it was locked. 

_ What have I done?  _

He pulled the door a little harder. Perhaps it was just stuck. Hell didn’t have the best of, well, anything really. Sometimes stuff got stuck. It didn’t budge. He pulled again. 

“Crawley, you are disturbing me, knock it off,” a demon from outside the door said. Crowley let go of the door handle and stepped away from the door. He didn’t recognize the voice of the demon, nor did he know what was going on. He looked around the room for some other way to escape but found nothing. 

A few minutes later, he heard keys jangling outside the door. The lock clicked and Beelzebub walked in. 

Beelzebub looked different than Crowley remembered. A lot happier for one thing. They were dressed up in fine clothes with a crown on their head.  _ A crown?  _ They smiled at him. 

“Oh hello Crawley,” Beelzebub crooned. “How are you doing today?” 

“What am I doing here?” Crowley asked. Beelzebub rolled their eyes. 

“Same as always.Same as you’ve been here for the last thousand years.” They shrugged. “You were becoming too powerful on your own down there. We had to stop you. You almost blew the Earth before the Antichrist was even born! We can’t have that.” 

“No,” Crowley said with confusion. “That’s not-” 

“There’s really no use to this right now,” Beelzebub said. “You didn’t fight then, you can’t right now. These are the terms of our contract. Unless you’d rather see yourself to a different fate.” They looked up to a bucket that Crowley hadn’t noticed before. Crowley couldn’t be certain, but he thought that this “other fate” that Beelzebub had in mind involved a bath of holy water. That did not sound too pleasant. Not in the slightest!

“I need to get to Earth,” Crowley said. “It really is quite urgent.” 

“You’ve never brought this up before,” Beelzebub said. “What is so  _ urgent  _ that you sit imprisoned for a thousand years before bringing up?” Crowley tried to think of an excuse. 

_ This can’t be real, _ he thought.  _ I was with Aziraphale just yesterday. I haven’t been locked up for a thousand years. I certainly didn’t almost burn the world down. I think I would remember that bit. Not really something you forget.  _

But looking around, all the signs pointed to the fact that he was, in fact, locked up and had been for a long time. He just wasn’t sure why this had happened. It didn’t make any sense. He went to bed last night in his own bed. His soft and warm bed in London. 

“Thought as much,” Beelzebub said. Crowley tried to pinch himself to assure himself that this was just a dream. His hand went right through his body. He sighed in relief. Just a dream then. He was  _ certain  _ that he had not been discorporated recently. “I do have something for you, however.” 

“Which is?” Crowley asked. 

“An assignment,” Beelzebub said. “You are the most powerful demon in all of Hell. The Antichrist has been born. It is a week before the end of everything. I need you to simply go to Earth and make sure things go smoothly.”

“Smoothly, right, yes,” Crowley said. “I-I can do that.” 

“I know you can,” Beelzebub said. “It was such a shame that we had to put you down here. You were doing so many  _ bad  _ things for us. No matter. It is your time to shine now, our dark lord.” 

“Yes, right,” Crowley said, though his thoughts were already wandering. He needed to wake himself up. He needed to find Aziraphale. He needed to apologize to the angel for what he’d said. He  _ really  _ hadn’t meant it. He didn’t even know why he’d said it in the first place. It came out of nowhere. 

“I will be sending you to London with a new body. Get in, get the job done, and get out, are we clear?” 

“As crystal,” Crowley replied, though he had no intention of following through. He had stopped Armageddon once. He would be damned if he would be the cause of it this time around. A portal opened at Crowley’s feet, so the demon stepped into it. 

When he blinked again, he was in the middle of London, just as Beelzebub had said they would send him. He wasn’t familiar with the area, however. He’d thought that he knew every inch of London, but apparently not. He looked around trying to find a sign or something to tell him where he was. He was hoping to find Aziraphale’s bookshop as soon as possible. That was all he wanted to do. 

Though he really wasn’t sure how much good apologizing to him in a dream would do. Give him practice for the real thing he supposed. It also gave him focus for the dream. The quicker that happened the quicker he could get back to the  _ real  _ Aziraphale. He was soon able to figure out where he was and figure his way to where the bookshop was. 

Or rather, where the bookshop  _ should  _ have been. 

In its place currently stood a store for occult things. Crowley shook his head. Perhaps in this weird dream reality, Aziraphale was running a witch shop. For some reason. Dreams certainly were weird. 

The vibe of the place was . . . off. It wasn’t exactly spooky, per se, but it really didn’t have any other distinct feelings to it. It was strange to say the least. Crowley had never walked into a place with such a vibe. 

“Hello and welcome to Vincent’s Home of the Unexplained,” a woman said. Crowley looked around to find the source of the voice but couldn’t. 

“Um, yes, hi,” Crowley said. “I’m looking for someone by the name of Aziraphale.” 

“I’ve never heard that name in my life, are you sure you’ve got the right place?” Crowley nodded. 

“This is it,” he said. “I don’t know if you know this, but a shop called A.Z. Fell and Co. used to be here. It was a bookshop. Do you know what happened to the owner of  _ that  _ shop?”

“My dear, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong shop. Mr. Vincent Harroway bought this place and built the building from the ground up. There has never been anything else here. Can I help you with directions?” Crowley shook his head. 

“No . . . thank you,” he said, deciding to step out of the store. That had been  _ so  _ helpful. 

So perhaps finding Aziraphale was not the purpose of this dream. Crowley really had no idea where else to look for the angel other than in his bookshop, which seemed to not exist in this reality. Oh well. He would wander the streets of London until he figured out what it was he was supposed to be doing for this dream. He really could sit here for the rest of eternity, not that he wanted to. 

Perhaps he should get going on the Armageddon thing. In reality, it was supposed to start on the Tadfield airbase. He supposed he could always head in that direction. This was a dream, after all. Besides, Aziraphale would probably be there anyway. The angel had helped him to stop the original Armageddon. 

But how to get to the airbase? It was miles from here, so he very well couldn’t just  _ walk  _ there. Plus, in this reality, he’d apparently been locked up for the last thousand years, so his Bentley really wasn’t an option either. He could always steal a car, he was a demon after all. But something about that just didn’t feel right. He found a back alleyway and let out his wings. This was an option. He never really flew in reality, never needed to. However, he’d been locked up for a thousand years in this reality, so was he really willing to risk it? It would call for quite the dramatic entrance. 

So it was settled then. He was flying. One flap of his wings and he was a hundred feet in the air. For a moment, he lost his balance because he never remembered his wings being that strong. Perhaps what Beelzebub had said about him being the most powerful demon was true. At least in this dream. 

It only took him a few minutes to get all the way to the airbase. He didn’t drop to the ground right away, he wanted to scope the place out first, see who was there and what was happening. It didn’t seem that anything was happening yet. He dropped anyway. So much for a dramatic entrance. He decided to wander the premises by foot. It was looking like he might be there for quite some time anyway. Might as well get a feel for the layout of the place for when everything goes to shit. 

***

Aziraphale was the second person to show up, though Crowley barely recognized him. He was in an outfit that was  _ much  _ better suited for fighting than the angel’s usual apparel. Clothes that were flexible, but something told Crowley that if he tried anything, it would bounce right off. Crowley found this odd, but this entire dream had been odd, so of course the angel would be off somehow too. He approached the angel. 

“Crawley the Destroyer,” Aziraphale said with disgust. “Of course  _ you  _ would be here.” Aziraphale manifested his flaming sword and pointed it at the demon. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” Crowley said, putting his hands in the air in surrender. He really hadn’t expected the angel to do  _ this _ . The angel’s face was set in a sort of glare that seemed to say  _ give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now _ . Crowley had never seen the look on the angel, not towards  _ anyone _ . “What’s all this name calling business,” Crowley asked, trying to lighten the mood though he knew it wasn’t going to work. Clearly he and Azirpahale didn’t have their friendship in whatever dream world he was living in. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Azirpahale said. “Is there something you prefer?” Aziraphale said, without moving the sword. Not like he cared about what the demon wanted. This demon had made his life a living Hell for five-thousand years before God finally forced Hell to lock him up. He didn’t think he’d see the demon again, and he thought it was far too soon to be doing so. Crowley backed up a step, but this only caused Aziraphale to take two steps forward. 

“Angel, I’m sorry,” Crowley said. “I know I fucked up, but I didn’t think I fucked up  _ this  _ badly.” 

“ _ Oh really _ ,” Aziraphale replied. “You didn’t think trying to  _ burn the world to the ground  _ was ‘that bad.’ Of course you would feel that way, demon.” Aziraphale positioned the sword right above Crowley’s heart. “Why should I not kill you right now? I know you’re one of the final pieces of the puzzle. You’ve been locked up for a thousand years, why else would you suddenly pop up right where the end is supposed to start?” 

“I’m not the Crawley that you know,” Crowley said. “I-I’m Crowley. We stopped Armageddon together. We were friends from the beginning of time-” Aziraphale scoffed. 

“As if I would ever get that close to a  _ demon _ ,” Aziraphale said. He brought the sword down a few more inches, making Crowley back up a little bit more, but he ran right into the building. “And  _ you,  _ stopping  _ Armageddon _ , please. You would never do such a thing.” Aziraphale shook his head. “You were the one who tried to  _ start  _ it a thousand years prematurely.” 

“No, no, you’re thinking of Crawley,” Crowley said. “Crawley the Destroyer. I am Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley, your best friend.” Crowley felt a burning sensation and liquid dripping down his chest. Azirpahale’s sword had made its first mark. “Aziraphale, you have to believe me, this isn’t how things are supposed to be.” Aziraphale made the sword go in further. “You  _ can’t  _ kill me, Aziraphale, you’ve never killed anyone!” 

“I don’t think you count as  _ anyone _ ,” Aziraphale said. “You are the biggest threat to the planet. You and your goddamn antichrist. I don’t see the little fucker yet, so I guess you get to be the first to go.” Azirpahale braced himself to sink the sword the rest of the way into the demon’s chest. 

“Wait,” Crowley said. “What if I can prove that I’m not who you think I am?” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t think that is possible.” Crowley shrugged. 

“So you kill me anyway, right after,” Crowley said. “That’s the end of that.” Azirpahale thought for a moment and removed the sword from Crowley’s chest. Crowley braced himself against the wall and righted himself. “I know you better than anyone else in the world, Aziraphale. I do, I really, really do.” 

“I doubt that,” Aziraphale said. Crowley thought for a moment. Aziraphale was different now than he had been in his reality (and with how much his wound was hurting, he knew that he was in some form of reality, just not  _ his  _ reality). This brought up an extra challenge. He had to figure out something that was true to Azirpahale’s  _ core _ , not just true though the experiences he’d shared with the angel. 

One wrong move and that sword would be plunged into his chest. He knew that that sword wouldn’t just kill him once it pierced his heart, it would destroy him completely. It was an angel’s sword. Something meant for destroying demons. The fact that he had it, however, was confusing. He’d given the sword away before he’d even met Crowley in Crowley’s original reality. Having not met Crowley he would have thought wouldn’t have affected it. No matter, there was more to Aziraphale than his love for people anyway. 

“You love  _ books _ ,” Crowley decided on. “You love the adventures they take you on and the wisdom that they share. You love that there is a way that you can hold an entire world in your hands. You love that there’s a billion different ways to say the same thing. Tell the same story with a million different endings.” Crowley paused and looked up to Aziraphale to see his reaction. The angel’s glare had softened, but was not fully gone. “You love the clever little phrases that humans can come up with. You love how it is a way that they can cope with their own immortality. You love that you can pretend, even just for a moment, that you yourself are  _ human _ .”  _ And it is one of the reasons I fell in love with you.  _ Aziraphale dropped the sword. 

“How did you-”

“I’m not Crawley the Destroyer,” Crowley said. “I’m just Crowley. I come from a reality where we were friends. We stopped Armageddon  _ together. _ I want to do that again.” 

“How do I know you’re not just tricking me?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley sighed., 

“I guess you really don’t,” Crowley admitted. “You’re just going to have to trust me. Can you trust me?” Crowley held out his hand as a peace offering. 

“You can’t trust demons,” Aziraphale whispered, though Crowley could tell that he was doubting himself. No one besides someone who knew him  _ very  _ well would know how much he loved books. “You just can’t.” Aziraphale looked at the sword on the ground. Its flame had gone out. Azirpahale looked at Crowley. “You’re really looking to  _ stop  _ this whole business?” Crowley nodded. 

“We have lived a thousand liftimes by each other’s side,” Crowley said. “I have not lied to you a single time. I am not about to start now.” Aziraphale studied the demon. He wanted to look for the usual tells of a lie. Something to show him that the demon was as malicious as he had been a thousand years ago. He needed something to tell him that he shouldn’t trust the demon. But he couldn’t. 

He had been the only one fighting against Armageddon these last eleven years. He didn’t even have Heaven on his side. He was sure to get executed no matter the turnout of Earth. 

He placed his hand in Crowley’s, deciding to trust the demon. It went against everything he stood for, but something told him that he could trust the demon. Even if it was just a whisper in a crowd of voices saying that he shouldn’t, it was still there. Crowley smiled. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, unable to believe that it had actually worked. Clearly in this reality, he and Aziraphale had some unresolved beef. Azirpahale placed his free hand on Crowley’s chest and healed the wound. Crowley felt tempted to put his hand over the angel’s, but he had to remember that this was not his angel, no matter how much he looked like his Aziraphale. 

“So now what?” Aziraphale asked. “You’ve apparently done this before.” Crowley nodded. 

“In my reality, the antichrist was a young boy named Adam Young. Very sweet kid. The entire world hinges on him being that same sweet kid that I knew. We just have to encourage him a little bit when Satan comes up.” 

“ _ Satan? _ ” Crowley shook his head. “We all thought that  _ you  _ were just Satan in disguise.” Crowley shook his head. 

“ ‘fraid not,” Crowley replied. “Satan is still a very real entity, and he will still be  _ very  _ angry when Adam does not do what he is supposed to.” 

“No pressure or anything,” Aziraphale mumbled. “So I don’t have to kill the Antichrist?” 

“In my time we didn’t, but everything here is so different that I can’t be sure.” Aziraphale nodded. 

“Right then. Now we wait, I suppose.” Crowley looked at his watch. 

“Shouldn’t be long now.” 

As if on cue, he heard the ringing of a bell on a bike. He turned and saw four children riding on bikes heading right towards them. They stopped and gently set their bikes to the ground. Crowley recognized Adam and sighed with relief. That was a good sign, but the only way to be sure of anything was to go up to him and see what the kid was like. 

“What are you kids doing here?” Crowley asked as he approached. 

“I think I could ask you the same question,” the child that Crowley presumed to be Adam Young said. “You don’t look like a soldier.” 

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Crowley said. Adam shrugged. 

“Some days, though I think I’ve made a mess today.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I didn’t mean to start the end of the world.”  _ This was a good sign _ . “I really don’t know what to do now though.” 

“We’re here to help you,” Crowley said. “At any second now, the four horsemen of the apocalypse will be exiting that building. I need you to tell them that you don’t believe in them.” 

“It’s that simple?” One of the other children said. “Stopping the end of the world shouldn’t be so simple. I was expecting a fight to the death or something more exciting. Not merely telling someone off.” 

“I do believe that it is that simple,” Crowley replied. “That’s how it happened the first time I went through this,” he said. He heard the door to the building creak open and four figures march out. Everything was going as it should. Besides maybe Aziraphale threatening to kill him, but that was a different story. 

And one by one, the children were able to make the figures disappear, besides Death, though that was exactly what Crowley had been expecting. Also as expected, Gabriel and Beelzebub showed up. Beelzebub marched right up to Crowley. 

“Do something about this,” they demanded. 

“What? Me?” Crowley said with confusion. Beelzebub rolled their eyes. 

  
“No, I want Hastur to take care of it. _Yes you_. Get your son to end the world!” 

“My son?” Crowley asked. Beelzebub sighed. 

“You just really don’t remember anything before this morning, do you?” they asked. 

“I mean I do,” Crowley said. “But it isn’t from this reality.” Beelzebub shook their head. 

“I always knew you were going to go crazy one day. But now is your time to unleash it,” they said. 

“No,” Crowley said firmly. 

“No?” 

“No,” Crowley said again. “I am choosing to save Earth. The humans have done nothing to deserve being destroyed, and I quite like the planet.” Beelzebub let out a low growl. Crowley shrugged. “And if this is falling on  _ me  _ now, you may as well give up because I am quite stubborn and I am not going to change my mind.” Beelzebub stomped their foot and Crowley was knocked out by whatever magic they had used. 

***

Crowley awoke in his warm, soft bed. He slowly opened his eyes and was greeted by the sun. He sat up and looked around the room to find something that might have been different. Anything to suggest that he was no longer in the reality he’d always been in. He reached for his phone and found that he had a number of missed calls from Aziraphale. He sighed in relief as he dialled the angel’s number. 

“Angel, I’m sorry.” Crowley said before Aziraphale had the chance to say anything. “I didn’t mean it when I said that I wished I never met you. My life is so much better with you here with me. I cannot-”

“Things got a little heated,” Aziraphale said. “It wasn’t just your fault. I actually have been calling to apologize myself. I regret everything that I said to upset you. If it weren’t for my own shortcomings, you wouldn’t have gotten so angry.” 

“Shall we dine at the Ritz today?” Crowley asked. He almost heard Aziraphale’s smile. 

“If that is what you would like to do.” 

“I’m always down for spending time with you.”

“So it’s set then, I will see you tonight. Our usual time?” Crowley nodded. 

“Yes, of course.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hits and kudos mean the world to me. Comments fuel me into next week.   
> Find me on Tumblr @justanangelandhisdemon and @justademonandtheirangel


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